


Slightly Bent

by MinaZ



Series: Folly Ficlets [1]
Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Book 4: Broken Homes, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 07:17:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1156699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinaZ/pseuds/MinaZ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter does feel pretty lousy at the end of Broken Homes. It's not that hard to see, is it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slightly Bent

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set at the end of Broken Homes, before Peter goes to meet Zach.
> 
> Again many thanks to old chatterhand for beta reading. :-)

By ten pm I was, if not three sheets to the wind, at least two and a half. Stephanopoulos sat two chairs away at the bar, and while she was talking to other officers relaxing after a long shift, she kept looking over. We have not become friends at any point. I respect her (okay, am also kind of scared of her) but I doubt she sees me even as a colleague. More as 'the guy that is strange but at least not as strange as his boss'. Her looks unnerved me. I had a bad day, week, month as it was. Ever since Lesley... Ever since Skygarden, I don't know what to do, say or think. I'm not angry with Nightingale, even though he is preoccupied with the Varvara situation almost constantly. I am not angry at Zach, because he never really owed us... me any loyalty. I am not angry at Dr Walid who seems to pretend Lesley was just another suspect. I am not angry at my colleagues, who only got the most ridiculous half truth why Lesley is... Yeah. I am angry at fucking someone, and was starting to really want to scream all that shit to someone’s face. That was the moment to leave. I finished my beer, paid and left. I was not going as straight as I thought I was. That or the tables and chairs just kept jumping in my way. Which, if I may add , is totally possible, but I would like to think that I would recognise anyone doing magic so close by. With some bumping, shoving, some laughter and 'sorry's, I ended up on the streets. The clock in a showcase on the other side of the street showed quarter past eleven. Huh?

After a few steps I suddenly saw a metal bar heading straight to my skull. My mind was still gasping for the right forma to pull up a shield, as a hand grabbed me and stopped me from running against the lamppost head first. Stephanopoulos gave me a critical once over. I gave her a little wave back. That did not seem to make her any happier.

"How about we get you back to the Unseen University in as few pieces as possible, eh?"  
She did not wait for me to agree and shoved my elbow in the right direction. We were not that far from Russell Square, and without any tables or chairs, the sidewalk was quite forgiving about my not so straight gait. For London it was relatively quiet. Not much later we entered Russell Square at the south east corner, and the Folly was visible through the trees of the park. It had not looked quite as... daunting in a long time. Maybe never. Without consulting my brain my legs decided to ignore the superior officer next to me, to enter the park and sit down. Sitting down was good. I avoided looking at my looming home.  
To my surprise, I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up in an annoyed but concerned face.  
"Come on, the last few steps can't be that hard." She pulled slightly at my shoulder, but I did not feel like getting up, and she seemed to not feel like putting in any effort.  
"Really? Do I need to get your governor? How old are you?" The annoyance clearly had won. It all kind of reminded me of a different night, though it had be much colder than, and a giggle, and being drunk and feeling sorry for myself and being so plain scared of the future... Although, in retrospect, had I known what was to come, would the prospect of joining the CPU have looked quite as depressing? Probably yes.  
"You know," I said, "she said I was a bad cop. Because... because I see thing that are not there." I looked at the Folly and then at Stephanopoulos. "I wish the things I see weren't there." I thought a long moment about this and heard her sigh. Then I grinned at her "But others are really cool. Do you want to see? I just figured out how to..."  
"No!" Looking back, there was real panic on her face for a brief second. "Time to go to bed for you."  
And this time she grabbed my arm and had me on my feet fast enough that the world was spinning for a moment. I am not sure, but I think Molly answered the door and dragged me to my room.

The next morning, I woke up still in my clothes, but at least without my boots on. And with a disgusting taste in my month, a splitting headache and feeling quite embarrassed. It took me over half an hour to get up, wash and dress before I started to look for aspirin. When I went down to look for breakfast, I was surprised to find Nightingale still there, reading the newspaper. Or a newspaper, because he had two stacks next to him, one already finished and one to be read I guessed, and from what I could see not all of them where in English.  
"Good morning, sir" I tried to be cheerful, but I was bloody tired. We had not seen much of each other in the past week.  
"Good morning, Peter." He seemed tense, but smiled. Some coffee and not too greasy food later, I felt almost human again.  
"Anything important for us?" I asked motioning for the papers.  
"Just trying to stay up to date." He folded the Russian (I think) newspaper.  
"I was thinking about teaching you an adaptation of the shield you have been using." That got my attention. Nightingale disliked changing the old and proven forma, but there was stuff I needed to be able to do. Since I was nowhere near to being able to manage the corresponding high formae at this point, we needed alternatives. The aer-congolare shield was one of these.  
"Sounds great. What adaptation?"  
He sipped at his tea."I was thinking about making it stable enough that you can use it as a step or hold if there is the need."  
I winced, and so did he, after seeing my face I guess. No question where he got the idea. I tried to look as cheerful as possible again.  
"That would be helpful. When can we start?"  
"This afternoon. I believe there is still some paperwork that needs to be finished, beforehand." I nodded. The paperwork was annoying, but the possibility of learning something new after having done nothing but fireball training for almost a month was very motivating. By evening, I was exhausted, but in a good way. Dr Walid showed up for dinner, and we had Shepherd's pie that was distinctly spicier than normally. We talked quite a bit afterwards, sitting in the atrium, about the theory behind both the original Skygarden magic and what the Faceless Man had tried to turn it into. If I hadn't been suspicious enough, that evening I got a text from Postmartin, reminding me that the offer to lend a sympathetic ear was still open.

Stephanopoulos and I might not be friends, but it was nice to know that she cared enough to give my team a kick, if need be.


End file.
